Red Herring

ONE

01

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The Quill and Ink Society
FROZEN IN FEAR: MYRTLE WARREN FOUND PETRIFIED

By Aaron Skeeter

Last night, a horrific discovery was made. Myrtle Warren's cooling corpse was found in the girls toilets by Olive Hornby, her former tormenter (slightly suspicious if you ask me). The taps were left running, ferociously splattering against the porcelain sinks. Water tipple-tailed down the sides and onto Myrtle's deceased figure, leaving her soaked to the skin. As her body got wetter and wetter, Myrtle, now a ghost, sobbed in an open cubicle. I'm sure you, like I, am wracked with questions of who, why and how but rest assured dear reader I'll report details soon enough, and I will unveil our culprit...

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Reid forced himself to stop staring at the moving picture of Myrtle's screeching, blue ghost above the typed writing and screwed the article up into a tight ball. He, and the rest of the Knights stole quick glances at Tom, who'd been staring at the page for at least five minutes. Reid wasn't entirely sure he was even digesting the words written, Tom seemed to be in his own world, absorbed in the parchment. Yet, his face held the same expression as always; blankness. Until it didn't.

Tom lifted his eyes from the paper and they flickered with something only comparable to thrill. His lips twitched, as if he were holding back a smirk. Looking around the rest of the table at Abraxas, Emlyn, Elias and Theo Reid noticed they mirrored his expression. Reid only realised he did as well when he found himself biting down on his tongue to stop a smile from creeping through.

The adrenaline from last night had hardly worn off. Reid hadn't been able to sleep. He'd tossed and turned feeling manic with glee and when he woke in the morning his usual routine somehow felt shifted. He'd smiled more. Hell, all of the Knights had smiled more. They'd cackled and laughed as if they were in the presence of the world's most hilarious comedian.

They practically skipped down the steps to the great hall and had eaten their breakfast looking as mischievous as some children who'd pulled a prank and gotten away with it. Reality only seemed to be cemented when owls swooped down dropping the Quill and Ink Society's paper on every students lap. It had come a day earlier, on Sunday over the usual Monday.

"What do we do about Skeeter?" Abraxas asked, in a low tone, aware that their fellow Slytherin sat further down the table, accepting compliments on his latest entry.

Reid's lip curled. He, like most of Hogwarts' student body heavily disliked Aaron Skeeter purely because of his unreasonably strong desire to out everyone's secrets. Normally, there were lighter topics to discuss than murder (though hopefully death would continue to be a significant one if everything went according to plan). For example, affairs, betrothals, pregnancies and other various rumours Skeeter spread. He was just as bad, if not worse, than his parents, who were reporters for the Daily Prophet and insisted on bashing the Selwyn name in most of their articles.

"Set the snake on him next," Reid suggested, seriously.

"I second that," Theo grinned. He was still bitter about Skeeter outing his drug and alcohol issues, which he of course insisted weren't issues and were completely manageable. Although Reid had noticed him pouring his flask, which likely contained fire whiskey, behind the newspaper he'd not so subtly stood up and into his morning coffee.